Yay for the actual first chapter! I know nothing important has happened yet, but they will! Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own a lot of things: a car, a laptop, a shit-ton of books, and various other things lots of other people have. Naruto is not one of those things (sadly).


Little spots of light seeped their way in through the trees outside of Naruto's window. The early morning breeze floated in and blew gently across the apartment and rustled at the list on the corkboard quietly. Birds chirped and brought in their soft songs through the open window. Naruto blinked his eyes open, the heavy lidded urge to sleep still strong. The clock radio on his headboard counted the time and flipped from 6:59 to 7:00 and turned on.

"Good morning Konoha!" came the cheerful voice of the morning radio show DJ. "It's seven in the morning and you know what that means! If the lucky caller number seven can tell us who sings the newest hit single I'm playing, they win a gift card for free dinner for two from the restaurant Shushuya! So tell me, Konoha: Who Sings That Song?"

The song began to play. It was a fun and happy sounding bubblegum pop song sung by a girl in her late teens. Naruto sat up and rubbed his eyes. He liked free food as much as the next guy, and if he knew who sang this overly happy tune, he'd call in. He shook his head and hit the snooze button on his clock radio and stumbled off to the bathroom. He stopped and supported himself on the sink, one hand on each side of the basin. He lifted his head and stared at the reflection in the mirror. He had trouble sleeping the past few weeks, and his face showed it. His skin was dry and his eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles under those eyes had gotten much bigger and darker. Sakura had once tried to cover them with concealer, but Naruto couldn't bring himself to apply Sakura's make-up on a daily basis. It just felt wrong.

He turned the handle on the sink and stuck his hands under the flow of ice cold water and splashed it onto his face. He grabbed for the brush on the lid of the toilet next to the sink and attempted to tame his hair into something presentable. Granny Tsunade wouldn't wait forever.

Naruto had never been awake this early. The village seemed like a different place in the morning. Naruto walked past his neighbors on the street shopping for groceries from street vendors and passed Konohamaru and his group of friends. The streets were almost empty of other ninja his age. Most of his friends, like him, didn't wake up until later in the morning due to being out late on missions. Many of the older people on the street stared at him curiously, but soon returned to their own business. Naruto couldn't help but notice that downtown Konoha was in infinitely better shape than the Uchiha compound. Naruto understood for once why Sasuke hated coming into town. Seeing everything in perfect condition and well cared for must have felt like a slap to the face. Naruto had vaguely heard of how the Uchiha had been screwed by the village over the years, but having people not even remotely care that their part of town was in shambles took the cake. The very idea of an entire village population letting an eight year old fend for himself in substandard housing was just cruel.

Naruto opened the door of the Hokage's building and checked in with the new receptionist; a cute light haired blonde with brown eyes. She directed him up the flight of stairs to her right. He plodded up the stairs slowly, gripping the railing tightly as if he were afraid of falling. Naruto didn't understand why Granny Tsunade had requested that he talk with her this early in the morning. Who could function this early anyway? Naruto pushed open the door to Tsunade's office and tried to shield his eyes from the glare of sunlight through the large windows behind the Hokage's desk.

Hell, even Tsunade wasn't awake yet. She snored quietly, her face resting on her desk and a small stream of drool coated the papers and files spread haphazardly over it. Naruto briefly considered taking the permanent marker in the coffee cup pencil holder on the edge of the desk and writing on her face. A basic prank, true, but an incredibly satisfying one! Naruto ditches the idea. Tsunade would be more willing to agree to his proposition if she was in a good mood. Instead of waiting for Tsunade to wake up and realize that for once Naruto had shown up on time, he sighed heavily and brought his hands together in a loud clap.

"Hrumpffm?" Tsunade grumped as her head jerked up. One of the papers (Naruto couldn't help but notice) was stuck to the side of her face.

"G'morning Granny Tsunade," Naruto said cheerfully.

Tsunade rubbed her temples and sighed.

"I was hoping to catch up on more sleep," she grumbled. "Do you know how late I had to stay up, you loudmouth?"

"Not as late as I usually have to," Naruto replied. "Although I admit that it is probably easier for me to stay awake than you. I am younger, after all."

"I am not OLD!" Tsunade yelled as she pushed herself into a standing position against her desk. "I don't know what it is you need to talk to me so urgently about, but insulting me isn't going to make me want to hear you out."

"Heh…about that,"

"Don't get shy on me, boy."

""I…I want you to give me the green light to repair the Uchiha compound." Naruto stared at Granny Tsunade, hoping she'd take him seriously.

"Naruto," Tsunade said slowly, as if trying to explain something to a small child. "You realize that there are no Uchiha left in Konoha, yes?"

"It won't stay that way for long," Naruto insisted. "Eventually, I'll get Sasuke to come home. He'll need the space when he gets older too, because he has a clan to restore. That compound isn't in any condition to be a home for anyone."

"It's just that-"

"Unless you think I can't do it," Naruto said through tight gritting teeth. "You think he'll say no? You got no faith in me?"

Tsunade shook her head.

"I wish you nothing but success and I certainly hope you bring Uchiha home. But I can't just give you permission to take on a task that large on your own. There are quite a few legal obligations that must be fulfilled before I agree to anything."

"Such as?"

"For one thing, our health care system is set up in a way that unless you own the property and you hurt yourself, any hospital bill will be impossible to pay. Legally, Sasuke still owns everything in that part of town. You injure yourself, and legally it'd be Sasuke's job to pay for your healing since it was his property you got hurt on. He'd be responsible for it. But like I said, Sasuke isn't here to pay for anything you might do to hurt yourself. You'd have to pay for it on your own, and the cost of healing you for any significant injury isn't going to be cheap. If you had legal responsibility over the place, it'd be the village that would pay your bills because we put the property in your care. Your healing would be free."

"So do it," Naruto said.

Tsunade walked over to one of many large file cabinets and pulled out a folder and slapped it onto her desk.

"See this?" she lifted a long piece of heavy legal paper from the folder. "It's a deed. In order to give you rights over the compound, someone has to sign it off to you. Unfortunately, Sasuke isn't here to give it to you."

"Cant the village sign it off to me?"

"Unless Sasuke is killed in action or dies a natural death and Konoha gets wind of it, we have no legal right to sign off someone else's property. Normally, a missing-nin's property is confiscated upon leaving, but since I've put out an order to suspend Sasuke's reclassification so you can safely bring him back, the land is still in his name."

Naruto bit his lip. Stupid red-tape…

"If you're so determined to fix it up, be my guest. You don't have to own it to fix it. Your name on the deed would certainly make it easier to defend your actions to the village elders, though."

Naruto perked up.

"So I can do it?"

Tsunade waved him out of her office.

"Go, go! Fix your little compound. Just don't expect everyone to be supportive of your decision."

"Done," Naruto said. "By the way, the paper is still stuck to your face."

He ran out the door before Tsunade could manage to hit him with the coffee mug she threw.

. . .

Ah, the strange magic of a hardware store. It was full of the sounds of wood saws being tested, the smell of molded plastics and metal and young children running around asking "what's this for?" Every other person was a man in his mid-thirties pretending he knew more about tools than the workers and paying for it by buying substandard tools at expensive prices. Fortunately, Naruto knew better than to assume he knew what was best.

"Morning," he said to the manager.

"Uzumaki?" He raised an eyebrow curiously. "What are you doing here? You've never needed anything from me before."

"There's a first time for everything," Naruto grinned at the shopkeeper, and he smiled back softly. "Actually I'm starting a big project and I need tools and supplies. LOTS of tools and supplies."

"How much do you think you'll need?" The shopkeeper took out a clipboard with order forms and a pencil.

"I'm not sure how many buildings total, but they're all in bad shape. So I need wood, screws, nails, drywall, and paint. If you were going to rebuild a condemned building from the foundation up, how much would I need?"

The shopkeeper took out his calculator and punched in some numbers.

"One standard three story building rebuilt from the original framework would need about three regular loads of wood, two regular loads of drywall, ten boxes each of nails and screws, and eight buckets of paint," the shopkeeper rummaged through the papers on his clipboard and stuck a new form on top. "How about you open up a tab with us? If your project is a big as you say, you're going to be ordering through us weekly, if not more so. Why don't you go pick out some standard tools for your kit while I fill out the form to open your tab?"

Naruto walked slowly up and down the hardware store aisles, picking up tools and examining them before putting them back. Naruto (being the klutzy ninja he was) needed solid, strong tools that could take a beating. He wanted high grade metal, but everything seemed to have wooden handles. He also needed to make sure they were all in the proper sizes and were easy to use. Naruto was a first time builder, and although he'd helped with construction projects before, it was all on a smaller scale. He remembered the mission to build a bridge that he'd gone on back when team seven was still new, but it was Sakura who had done most of the helping with the actual building. Naruto and Sasuke did nothing but train.

Once his new tool case was filled with acceptable tools for a clumsy and first timer, he walked back up to the checkout counter to place his first order.

"So," the shopkeeper said. "I put in an order for supplies to fix three buildings. I also threw in two extra boxes of nails and screws. Those little buggers like to get loose. You'll lose a lot of them when you're building. Trust me; you'll thank me later for it."

As Naruto completed his transaction, the shopkeeper placed the tab form in front of him.

"Now that your tab is open and your supplies can be ordered, where do you want them dropped off?"

Naruto set his new toolbox down beside him and wrote the address on the delivery information line. The shopkeeper took the paper and stared at it in shock. No doubt he'd seen that all materials were to be delivered in front of the Uchiha compound main gate.

"Young man," the elderly shopkeeper said gravely. "This big project you're starting…it isn't to rebuild the old Uchiha compound is it?"

"Yep," All Naruto could do was shrug. Tsunade had warned him, after all.

"You're going to refurbish the property of a traitor?"

Naruto put his signature on the completion line of the tab request form.

"I am," he told the shopkeeper. "Because when Sasuke comes back, he doesn't deserve to live in a place fit for a traitor."